Astronauts Peggy Whitson, KC5ZTD, and Thomas Pesquet, KG5FYG, and Cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy will head into space on November 17 for a 6-month stay aboard the International Space Station. NASA Television coverage will begin at 1730 UTC on November 16. The launch from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan will be at 1820 UTC on November 17.

It will take the Expedition 50/51 crew members 2 days to reach the ISS in their Soyuz vehicle.

Welcoming the new crew increment will be Expedition 50 Commander Shane Kimbrough, KE5HOD, and crew members Sergey Ryzhikov and Andrey Borisenko, who have been aboard the complex since October.

Whitson will become the first woman to command the space station twice. Her first tenure as commander was in 2007, when she became the first woman to hold this post. The crew is scheduled to return to Earth next spring. -- Thanks to NASA